INSTRUCTIONS: Select the choice (A) - (D) that best answers the questions.
Note that some items have more than one "correct" possible response.
Some questions in this section might also have no entirely correct response.
76. Which of the following is NOT an ethical means of helping students prepare for a school-wide test?
77. A teacher wants her students to get their test results as quickly as possible. She places their scored tests on a chair outside of her room immediately after school. What problem(s) are there with this procedure?
78. Which of the following tasks probably has the most authenticity for a test of business English?
79. A teacher notices an error in her school entrance exam after the exam was administered. One multiple choice question had two possible correct answers. What should the teacher do?
80. In a classroom exam administered to fifty of your students, you noticed that none of them answered one question that was in the exam correctly. What should you do?
81. Shortly after the start of a 30-item midterm test in your class, you notice that two students glancing at each others papers. What should you do?
82. You have 100 student essays to grade. You notice how your severity has changed in the course of the rating process. You had a tendency to rate the essays harshly at first, but gradually as you saw how lousy most of the writing actually was, you became more lenient. Assuming that you do not have access to multiple raters, what should you do?
83. A teacher at one school has received consistently lower student ratings for a number of years. That teacher is well-respected by the faculty and a good researcher. What action should be taken?
84. The computer of a teacher working on a school entrance exam became infected with a virus and just a few days before the exam, that exam leaked out onto the Internet. What should be done?
85. Your school has decided to stream incoming freshman English majors according to their English ability. What would be the best way to do that?
86. Two star baseball players in a required EFL class are unable to make it to first base as far as English is concerned. They cannot do the tasks that 8th graders are supposed to be able to do. What should you do?
87. One student in your required freshman English 101 class is clearly far ahead of other students. This student spent two years in Australia and knows most of the material being taught already. However, since she doesn't want to seem too bright or stand out too much, recently she has started "playing dumb" in class because students tease her for knowing too much. What should you do?
88. Which of the following would be the most valid way(s) to measure faculty performance for promotions?
89. When reporting test scores to students, which of the following is/are unethical?
90. One teacher in your department grades in a way that's much more lenient than other faculty. She consistently awards A grades to over half her students, and the only students who fail are those who did not attend class enough. What should be done?
91. One student comes 30 minutes late to the 60-minute semester final reading exam, claiming that his train was delayed. However, he does not have a written validation stub from the train station that there was an actual train delay. What should you do?
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(B) Open questions
INSTRUCTIONS: Read each situation and then decide the best response.
92. Your EFL students don't speak. To encourage them to speak up more, you decide to award token cards to students who raise their hands and speak. Student grades will be based mainly on how many token cards they receive. Mention at least three problems with this type of grading system.
Problem 1:
Problem 2:
Problem 3:
93. Here is some information from a commercial test brochure comparing its test score bands with
three other widely known tests. There is also a disclaimer at the bottom of the table in Japanese
stating, "test standards and grading methods differ, so this information should be taken with a grain of salt."
Mention at least one ethical problem with putting this sort of information in a test brochure.
94. At one cram school in Japan, the sales material mentions that students should be able
to increase their TOEIC® scores by 100 points by taking that cram school's special TOEIC®
course. It also mentions that persons who go through the "TOEIC® 750" class should be
ready for the "T0EIC® 860" class. Mention at least two ethical concerns.
95. At one school all student evaluations of teachers are made public and posted in the schoollibrary in the name of transparency. Mention at least two problems with this policy.
96. Look at the grading policy from a "Business English" course syllabus on the right.
Mention at least two concerns about this grading scheme.
97. In one class students are required to pass a given English test. Immediately after the test
is complete, students receive a copy of the test with all of the correct answers. Students who
failed the test the first time are then required to retake the exact same test a second time a week
later, and keep on retaking the test until they obtain a passing score. The teacher claims
this policy encourages beneficial washback by insisting on a minimum level of student performance. Any problems with this?
98. At one school teachers are required to conduct student evaluations of just one of their classes each
semester. Teachers can select which class will be evaluated. They also administer the
evaluations themselves and then hand the envelopes with the evaluations to a school secretary
who compiles the subsequent statistical data. Mention at least two concerns about this procedure.
99. A student in a basic research class was conducting a survey about the reading patterns of her peers.
Her survey included the following question with this continuum-line response:
Mention at least one problem with the construction of this survey item and suggest a better response format.
100. In a survey of attitudes towards English the following question appeared:
Q: Do you enjoy speaking English with foreigners? O YES O NO
Mention at least two problems with the construction of this survey item and
suggest a better wording for this sort of question.
